On Sunday 5 April Kanayama Shrine held its annual Kanamara Matsuri, a traditional Japanese festival of Shinto origin that incorporates a phallic parade and has now become quite the tourist magnet. And there were penises everywhere.

Wow, Japan, is that a giant wooden phallus in your hot springs, or are you just happy to see m–oh. I see. Well, uh, I’ll just be on my way then. Um…maybe one quick photo…

As you are surely already aware, Japan has quite a few unusual, phallicfestivals allegedly intended to be fertility rites for couples hoping for children. They’re also great attractions for curious tourists or anyone who wants to try frosted penis-bananas. Iwate Prefecture, perhaps not wanting to be left out, has a phallus festival of its own. Its standout feature? The phallus riding event! And, great news, ladies, they’re taking applications!

(Before clicking below, use your best judgement about whether or not this is something you should be reading at work.)

It’s that time of year again! Spring is in the air, the cherry blossoms are blooming, and everyone’s feeling a little bit randy. What better way to celebrate life than with the Kanamara Matsuri, better known as the Penis Festival, to be held on April 6th from 11am to 6pm.

Live on air, even with the best scripting and a highly skilled team behind you, anything can happen. Minor mishaps during live broadcasts rarely cause too much trouble, and most viewers are generally quite understanding when they do, but there are some combinations–such as, oh, a serious news bulletin and a doodle of a giant schlong– that tend to raise a few eyebrows.

As many of you may have seen, footage appeared online last week showing newscaster Siobhan Riley using a touchscreen to draw on a map of the local area during a live news bulletin, accidentally creating what some people think looks like a giant penis in the process. Unfortunately for Ms. Riley the news even made it out to Japan where netizens positively lapped it up.

When Nintendo stated that Miiverse, its new online community and text-based messaging service, would be strictly policed and kept kid-friendly, they weren’t kidding!

Lifelong gamer and RocketNews24 reporter Kuzo has been tooling around with the office’s new Wii U games console for weeks now, and, thanks to the efforts of Mr. Sato who attended the Japanese launch last weekend, managed to get his hands on a Japanese version of the machine, which he’s been thoroughly enjoying.

Imagine Kuzo’s shock, though, when he stumbled across a drawing of a goomba – the little mushroom bad guys from the Super Mario games – spliced onto the end of a crudely-drawn love-wand while using his new console’s integrated social network! Even more shocking, though, was the speed with which Nintendo’s net police honed in and took care of the offending material.

Everyone’s familiar with Whac-A-Mole, right? Even if you’ve never played the classic American arcade game, countless variations exist all over the world, all of which involve bashing erratic plastic animals with a blunt object.

One of our Japanese reporters recently stumbled across a very unique Whac-A-Mole game that keeps the basic gameplay theme intact, but swaps out the moles for something more…painful.

According to news report over at Japanese info hub Heaven, a 17-year-old boy in China has taken a knife to his own love wand, cutting it off completely, later giving the reason that he was experiencing too many unwanted erections.

Thankfully, the following report does not contain any graphic photos, but there’s still plenty of mental imagery guaranteed to make any man shudder in front of his computer or smart phone…

■ Chinpoji – Cheenpojee – [noun]
The perfect position for a man’s junk to rest in his underwear, pants, etc.

For men worldwide, to function normally we have to have our gear oriented in the correct position. If through moving or sitting we fall out of chinpoji, then our minds become clouded with neuroses.

According to a survey by Japanese underwear maker Wacoal, 75% of men “are anxious about the positioning of their ‘front parts.’” Not just the discomfort going on inside the pants; many men feel that their packages can be seen by people on the outside too when they’re out of place. This causes us to perform emergency public adjustments, which makes any woman within eyeshot go “ugghhh.” In the end no one wins.

Yahoo Japan’s R25 explored this issue deeper, seeking to discover if all men’s chinpoji are the same and, if so, ask a medical professional why. Here’s what they found.

The other day I was smoking a cigar while driving my Hummer with a gun rack in the back when I saw a pretty young lady walking along. I asked if she’d like to head down to the shooting range, but she replied “no thanks, micropenis!”